New Vocabulary


Alabaster: genuine alabaster is a very fine variety of crystalline gypsum (hydrous calcium sulfate) found in nature. It is translucent and its color is often white, pearly, or silky colorless but it, more often than not, has subtle reddish-brown bands of iron oxide running through it. It is often used for decorative objects such as light fixtures or figurines.

Accent Lighting: lighting that is used to accent or highlight a particular object such as a work of art. To be effective accent lighting should be approximately four or five times the level of ambient light in the room, area, or space. House plants can be accented by aiming an uplight at the wall behind the plant, creating a dramatic silhouette of the plant against the wall.

Bayonet Base: a type of lamp base with pins that serve to lock the lamp into slots in the lamp socket of a luminaire. The bayonet base got its name from the method used by soldiers to mount bayonets on their rifles.

Beam Spread: a measure of the spread of light from a reflectorized light source, a special-shaped lamp with a
reflective coating inside the bulb to direct the light forward.

CCFL: a cold cathode fluorescent lamp is a type of fluorescent lamp in which the cathode (an electron-emitting electrode inside the lamp) is not independently heated although the cathode can become quite hot once the CCFL has been operating.

Incandescence: light emission by a heated filament.

Cathode :Metal filaments that emit electrons in a fluorescent lamp. Negatively charged free electrons emitted by the cathode are attracted to the positive electrode (anode), creating an electric current between the electrodes.